Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Unfortunately I haven't been blogging much over the past few months... that last semester was busier than I expected. But alas, I'm graduated!!!

I'm posting some pictures from one of my recent trips. This year I've already been to Boston, New Orleans and Orlando; I don't travel much so I've been thoroughly enjoying the year so far. Although New Orleans was my favorite city of the three, Boston actually showed me the best art. The photos from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts are the most inspirational by far. I saw Morris Lewis, George Segal, Van Gogh, Kara Walker, Donald Judd and many more well known names! I'd never before been so thankful for my many art history courses :)

Photo by Henry Horenstein

Seemed relevant to my work :)

Sculpture of Movement

I stumbled upon this as I was researching images for my last post. It's too cool, I want to make one!

It is located in Dublin, Ireland. I believe the artist's name is Daniel Doyle.

Collaborative Project

Proposed Title: The Visceral Mean of the Afterlife 

Contemplating the afterlife...

What happens? No idea.
Then how do I illustrate that? psh.
Heaven vs. Hell, a weird thing to Google Image search. If I'm speaking about imagery alone, Hell is more appealing; it's energetic, warm, fiery, angry, a place no one would enjoy. A portrait of the devil would be really fun to paint, but is that sacrilegious? Do I even mind?

I love the song "Heaven" by Brett Dennen, which moves past religion. Plus, it's a beautiful song---check it out!

"Castles and cathedrals crumble
Pyramids and pipelines tumble
The failure keeps you humble
Leads us closer to peace"

I love that theory. Actually, this idea would make for an interesting painting!

I'm also intrigued by reincarnation. I'm imagining butterflies made of human bones and other animals incorporating obvious human anatomy. I don't know how I would illustrate humans returning as other humans; I like the idea of returning as animals. 

I've got some more thinking to do... 

Lily Yeh

Artist Lily Yeh recently visited my advanced painting class and spoke very personally and sincerely with us for several hours. It turned into an emotional discussion which was very moving and thus inspiring to me as an artist. She brings beauty to places where it is most needed. She spoke only of the good that resulted from her voyages, neglecting to share the funding of her projects nor did she go in depth about the poverty of these areas. Lily is a very optimistic, inspirational, colorful artist. I would love to have an impact similar to her own.

as a side note: the floral patterns on the cover of her book Awakening Creativity are sweet

Ocean Surface Paintings

I'm beginning to work on my 6 (yes, 6 now) paintings that will stand behind my sculptures for my upcoming senior exhibition. I'm going to start this week on the first two.

I will do two ocean surface paintings for the upper two shelves within the glass case. In front of one painting will be the shark head leaping out of the water. In front of the second will be two birds floating and/or flying above the water. Here are some source images:

Mel Ramsden

Learned a little about contemporary artist Mel Ramsden today in my art history class. I love his famous Secret Painting, shown below: 

It reads: "The content of this painting is invisible ; the character and dimension of the content are to be kept permanently secret, known only to the artist."

The painting that the text refers to is the black square to the left.

It is so humorous, which by now you've realized appeals to me very much. Ramsden has really nailed down his concept of displaying the relationship between art and language.  I'm really beginning to love the style known as conceptualism. It really makes me think. 

Cartoons

Just stumbled upon these sculptures of two of my favorite characters, Beavis and Butthead.

The website where I found these is in mostly German, so I didn't get to read much information. The sculptures are just great; I stared at them for a good while. I love envisioning famous cartoon characters as real humans. It made me think... What would Peter Griffin look like? Hank hill? Charles Finster? Etc.
This could inspire some really fun paintings or sculptures in my own work.